A new U.S. Department of Agriculture survey shows rented farmland remains a major part of American agriculture, with absentee landowners holding a significant share of cropland and pasture nationwide.
USDA’s Tenure, Ownership and Transition of Agricultural Land survey, known as TOTAL, found about 348 million acres of agricultural land are rented for uses including cropland and pasture. The figures exclude federally owned public grazing land.
The Plains region, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Texas, accounts for about 43% of all rented farmland, or roughly 149 million acres, despite having a smaller share of the nation’s landlords.
In the Midwest, nearly 800,000 absentee landowners own farmland but do not actively farm it. Those owners represent about 38% of U.S. landlords while controlling 21% of agricultural acres, according to the survey.
Nationwide, about 2 million landlords own roughly 167 million acres of cropland and 98 million acres of pasture.
Including crop-share arrangements, landlord-owned cropland rises to about 205 million acres.
